This invention relates to an apparatus for arranging the obverse and reverse sides of bills or the like which is used as an internal mechanism of bill handling machines such as bill depositing and dispensing machines and bill arranging machines.
Conventionally, a mechanism such as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 75392/1982) is known as an apparatus for arranging the obverse and reverse sides of bills or the like.
This conventional apparatus is arranged as follows: After passing a discriminating section 1, bills Pa with their obverse and reverse sides in an arbitrarily mixed state are given an operating timing by a first sensor 2. The bills are then guided by a first gate fork 3 for maintaining the status shown in FIG. 2, are conveyed to conveyor belts 4 and 5, and are distributed in two directions by means of a second gate fork 7, i.e., a distributing device, which operates on the basis of the results of the discrimination of the obverse and reverse sides obtained in the discriminating section 1.
For instance, in a case where a bill is judged to be in the obverse state, the second gate fork 7 rotates counterclockwise as viewed in the drawing from the state shown in the drawing. The bill is then conveyed by the conveyor belts 5 and 13 and is fed in between blades 9a of an accumulating wheel 9.
On the other hand, in a case where a bill is judged to be in the reverse state, the second gate fork 7 maintains the state shown in the drawing, and the bill is fed in between the conveyor belts 4 and 8. After the bill is conveyed by the conveyor belts 4 and 8 and is temporarily fed into a conveying-direction inverting mechanism 10, the bill is fed out again in between conveyor belts 8 and 11. The bill is then conveyed by the conveyor belts 8 and 11 and is fed in between the blades 9a of the accumulating wheel 9.
Bills or the like which are fed in between the blades 9a of the accumulating wheel 9 with their sides arranged in the obverse state are caused to drop into and accumulate in a container 12 immediately below the accumulating wheel 9 as the accumulating wheel 9 rotates.
To describe in detail the conveying-direction inverting mechanism 10, this mechanism is arranged such that a roller 14 having a multiplicity of projections around the periphery thereof apart from the position of a pulley 8a, as shown in FIG. 3, is provided on the shaft 8b of the pulley 8a round which the conveying belt 8 is wound. The rear end of the bill or the like fed into the conveying-direction inverting mechanism 10 by means of the conveyor belts 4 and 8 is pulled downwardly by a projection on the periphery of the roller 14 and assumes the state of Pc shown by a broken line in the FIG. 3. Then, the bill is fed in between the conveyor belts 8 and 11 with the rear end facing the forward direction and is fed out into the accumulating wheel by means of the conveyor belts 8 and 11. In other words, inversion of the conveying direction is effected.
In the aforementioned conventional apparatus for arranging the obverse and reverse sides, since the conveying-direction inverting mechanism 10 provided on one branch of the conveying passage which branches out into two temporarily sets the bill or the like in a free state (an unclamped state) before feeding the same into the accumulating wheel 9, the inverting operation at this conveying-direction invertinhg mechanism 10 is not positively carried out. Additionally, the time required for the inverting operation is uncertain and is not fixed. As a result, there are cases where there occur such malfunctions as the feeding out of a bill not being carried out smoothly and the timing of the feeding out being delayed. Consequently, there are cases where bills or the like are damaged, bills or the like from two conveying passages for those in the obverse and reverse states are double fed into the same blades of the accumulating car, or succeeding bills or the like are double fed onto the conveying passage on the inverting side. The aforementioned malfunctions appear even more noticeably in the case of bills which are not rigid.
In addition, in the case of handling a fixed number of bills or the like, a difference occurs in handling time depending on the proportions of the obverse and reverse sides of the fixed number thereof.